A poll by 1st Software, a technology supplier to financial advisers and mortgage intermediaries, revealed 81 per cent of the 400 advisers surveyed in an online poll agreed, despite the fact more than one in four firms claim they still spend more than ten hours a week chasing client valuations in the traditional manual way.
According to the survey, almost half of all advisers, or 49 per cent, spent 1-5 hours a week chasing valuations and 10 per cent of adviser firms said ‘digital certificates’ were the e-business development which would most help their business.
Brokers saw neither online commission nor online product literature as a priority, although 40 per cent of brokers polled used online submissions, quotations and literature.
Paul Pettitt, managing director of Origo, commented: “Origo, its sponsors, and IFAs, have put a great deal of effort into developing the ‘Contract Enquiry’ standards and now we are seeing services emerge which make use of those standards.”
